Jimmy Graham Contract

this is a discussion within the Saints Community Forum; Originally Posted by Utah_Saint
He had 6 touchdowns in the last 6 games of the season. I think thats pretty good down the stretch. And averaged 60 yards per game, not bad for a guy with planter fasciitis.
As far ...

He had 6 touchdowns in the last 6 games of the season. I think thats pretty good down the stretch. And averaged 60 yards per game, not bad for a guy with planter fasciitis.

As far as being "punked out", he only had one game without a catch. In that game, the opposition put their best corner on him every play and gave safety help on most. I don't think the problem for the Saints in that game was Jimmy Graham. The problem was no one else stepped up to make them pay for it.

Or plays weren't called to take advantage of that defenses exposure...

Or plays weren't called to take advantage of that defenses exposure...

Absolutely. And if that's the case, Payton better work on that because as of the Patriots game, Jimmy Graham became everyone's focus. I think the belief is Shut down Graham and you can shut down the Saints.

He had 6 touchdowns in the last 6 games of the season. I think thats pretty good down the stretch. And averaged 60 yards per game, not bad for a guy with planter fasciitis.

As far as being "punked out", he only had one game without a catch. In that game, the opposition put their best corner on him every play and gave safety help on most. I don't think the problem for the Saints in that game was Jimmy Graham. The problem was no one else stepped up to make them pay for it.

Omg.... Are we one brain today or what....... I was gonna say it but you beat me too it. Not only that but Talib the guy who did the "punkin" didn't even make it to the end of the game. It's now up to us to go and find another options to help our tight end..... I'll just take a few of the better TEs for example...... Witten (Dez Braynt) or how bout Gonzolez ( Julio jones, roddy white )... You shouldn't be able to cover him and stop every Saint on the field...... Then when the seasons over all the blame is pointed in his direction....Lol

Location: Grand Haven, Michigan by way of a little Mississippi River town in Louisiana

Posts: 4,974

Re: Jimmy Graham Contract

Originally Posted by alleycat_126

Omg.... Are we one brain today or what....... I was gonna say it but you beat me too it. Not only that but Talib the guy who did the "punkin" didn't even make it to the end of the game. It's now up to us to go and find another options to help our tight end..... I'll just take a few of the better TEs for example...... Witten (Dez Braynt) or how bout Gonzolez ( Julio jones, roddy white )... You shouldn't be able to cover him and stop every Saint on the field...... Then when the seasons over all the blame is pointed in his direction....Lol

Look at the Cowboys record and look at Atlanta's record, go ahead pay the man.

No!! I only look at the field play. I honestly don't think any player is worth as much as they get paid, never have. With that out of the way if I was basing it on production I would look at the overall body of work, blocking, yrd's after catch, TD's all of the stat things, but stats don't tell everything and when he has been punked out for several games you have to look at those stats also if your a stat person and ask yourself if he is really all that good or a product of the system. I say product of the system and not playing well down the stretch in the playoffs where you usually see better D's thats not good it only makes his case worse, not better. As for Shockey in his prime vs. Graham in his, and he is, I'll take Shockey each and every day, that man lived to play football.

Let it go..... Some people look at angles that benefit their argument.

Totals are functions of utilization and we all know Jimmy Graham wasn't utilized as a traditional TE.

Jimmy had 86 receptions / 1,215 yards and / 16 TDs / 1st down % 70.9

86 receptions puts his utilization in the WR range Gordon/Boldin/Decker.

This year his drop rate improved significantly, he was in the top half (barely) of TEs and the top third of WRs.

Last year he was dealing with a wrist injury that many sports writers said contributed to his poor drop percentage, 15.00.

In his four years in the league his drop rate has been 8.82 , 5.77, 15.00 and 6.52 this year.

And if we use PFF stats, Graham may not have been the best blocking TE but he ended the season with a positive grade and in the top half of TEs in both run and pass blocking. So according to them, he wasn't a liability.

This year his drop rate improved significantly, he was in the top half (barely) of TEs and the top third of WRs.

Last year he was dealing with a wrist injury that many sports writers said contributed to his poor drop percentage, 15.00.

In his four years in the league his drop rate has been 8.82 , 5.77, 15.00 and 6.52 this year.

And if we use PFF stats, Graham may not have been the best blocking TE but he ended the season with a positive grade and in the top half of TE's in both run and pass blocking. So according to them, he wasn't a liability.

Sorry, I dont listen to many Sports Writers, I listen to so few that there isn't a number less than 2 digits past the decimal to define it.

You are proving my point for me.. While you are arguing that he is not bad and we shouldn't get rid of him I have never said that we should. I said he hasn't been consistent enough for Gronk money and he hasn't.

I do not know what grades you are looking at on PFF but his run blocking -6.1 worst on all offense and pass blocking is -0.2 19th out of 26 offensive players.

THink about this combination for me... Forget what we have discussed and that this is Jimmy Graham ... If a player doesnt catch nearly 40% of the passes thrown at him and leads the league in INTs when thrown to him what would you think?

Location: Grand Haven, Michigan by way of a little Mississippi River town in Louisiana

Posts: 4,974

Re: Jimmy Graham Contract

Originally Posted by TheOak

Sorry, I dont listen to many Sports Writers, I listen to so few that there isn't a number less than 2 digits past the decimal to define it.

You are proving my point for me.. While you are arguing that he is not bad and we shouldn't get rid of him I have never said that we should. I said he hasn't been consistent enough for Gronk money and he hasn't.

I do not know what grades you are looking at on PFF but his run blocking -6.1 worst on all offense and pass blocking is -0.2 19th out of 26 offensive players.

THink about this combination for me... Forget what we have discussed and that this is Jimmy Graham ... If a player doesnt catch nearly 40% of the passes thrown at him and leads the league in INTs when thrown to him what would you think?

Sorry, I dont listen to many Sports Writers, I listen to so few that there isn't a number less than 2 digits past the decimal to define it.

You are proving my point for me.. While you are arguing that he is not bad and we shouldn't get rid of him I have never said that we should. I said he hasn't been consistent enough for Gronk money and he hasn't.

I do not know what grades you are looking at on PFF but his run blocking -6.1 worst on all offense and pass blocking is -0.2 19th out of 26 offensive players.

THink about this combination for me... Forget what we have discussed and that this is Jimmy Graham ... If a player doesnt catch nearly 40% of the passes thrown at him and leads the league in INTs when thrown to him what would you think?

6 INTs when throwing to Jimmy Graham... More than anyone in the league... Drew Brees threw 12 INTs this season. 1/2 of Drews INTs were while throwing to Graham.

Is it coincidence that Drew Brees throws 1/2 of his INTs when throwing to Graham or possibility a receiver has t-rex syndrome and doesn't go get the ball?

I do not want to hear about injures as long as he is dunking balls... That defies logic.

Hold the phone...

As Saint fans that understand our team fairly well as most of us demonstrate in posts here, we recognize when the Saints are about to pump the ball to Graham...

Surely, good teams recognize formations, tendencies, tells that give that away that same information...

Definitely, understand the frustraton that Graham didn't seem to want it more; however, I've postponed judgement as I said previously - It's time Graham give wink and there be disclosure about the plantar fascia injury; and how it affected his ability to fight for the ball, position et al...

As I've rewatched the @Seattle playoff game again, saw inaccurate throws (i.e. wrong side of the body, behind the receiver, hesistated throws,etc) by Brees that give me continued concern about Brees' arm strength/accuracy and the decline in same since his rehab regime coming to the Saints...

In fact, I think Brees needs to see a shoulder specialist well in advance of next season to see if there is something he could do to intensify, or even just adjust his workout to possibly reinvigorate that reconstructed shoulder...

So I can't hang those INT's on Graham so easily without having as much information as Coach Payton will allow us to share about the injury...

But the blocking, you are correct, sir; in fact, it would be best if he were tasked not to block to there is no video footage of it for latter embarrassment...

Sorry, I dont listen to many Sports Writers, I listen to so few that there isn't a number less than 2 digits past the decimal to define it.

You are proving my point for me.. While you are arguing that he is not bad and we shouldn't get rid of him I have never said that we should. I said he hasn't been consistent enough for Gronk money and he hasn't.

I do not know what grades you are looking at on PFF but his run blocking -6.1 worst on all offense and pass blocking is -0.2 19th out of 26 offensive players.

THink about this combination for me... Forget what we have discussed and that this is Jimmy Graham ... If a player doesnt catch nearly 40% of the passes thrown at him and leads the league in INTs when thrown to him what would you think?

6 INTs when throwing to Jimmy Graham... More than anyone in the league... Drew Brees threw 12 INTs this season. 1/2 of Drews INTs were while throwing to Graham.

Is it coincidence that Drew Brees throws 1/2 of his INTs when throwing to Graham or possibility a receiver has t-rex syndrome and doesn't go get the ball?

I do not want to hear about injures as long as he is dunking balls... That defies logic.

I wasn't arguing with you. I was taking your point and expounding upon it.

You're right about the blocking grade. I must've been looking at the wrong row. Good catch. My mistake.

It's easy to make mistakes when looking at all these numbers in all these columns.

I do like to look at catch percentage. I think it's one of the most important stats for a receiver. I haven't really looked at interceptions thrown at before but it is interesting.

A mistake you made was saying that there were more interceptions from throws to Jimmy Graham than anyone in the league. Actually he's in a 4 way tie at for 14th in the league at 6. Not coincidently, Graham had the 14th most balls thrown his way. AJ. Green had the lead with 12, twice as many as Graham. 6 actually isn't extremely high for the number of times he was thrown at.

So thinking about it, If we look at interceptions thrown at as a percentage, things change a little. You were only using TEs as for examples and I don't feel like crunching %s for all the receivers...Jimmy was thrown at 136 times leading to 6 interceptions or 4.41% of the attempts. By comparison,
Jordan Cameron 4.59%
Rob Gronkowski 6.25%
Owen Daniels 10.26%

The vast majority of TE's are in the 3-4% range. As a comparison strictly with Drew Brees, Ben Watson's interception thrown at % is 3.57%, less than one percent difference from Graham.

So, no, I don't think it's just a coincidence that Brees throws more interceptions to Graham than anyone else on the team. Looking at the names on the list, it may be that it's more about the ball placement. Just like the guys listed above, I think Brees and the other QBs try to throw high to these big receivers to put the ball above the defenders head and as such are subject to interceptions from safetys covering over the top.

As far as catch percentage goes, 63% isn't bad. Some notable names at that level or below are;

Those are some of the best receivers in the league. Pretty good company.

When we talk about his injury, I'm not a doctor so I'm not even going to pretend I know what you can or can't do when you have planters fasciitis, But I did read that it's all about pain management and maybe in his particular case, it hurts more to run for distance than one jump, but I will say if the doctors diagnose it, the media covers it, and there's a notable drop off in performance following it, I have to believe it and I think most other people would too.

So to sum up this giant wall of text, after really thinking about the catch percentage and interception %, I think we can see that Graham is as good as, or better than some of the biggest name receivers in the league.